The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-07
ENGLISH HIGH LIFE.
Americans Who Get into the Prince of
Wales Set Not Esteemed.
From the San Francisco Argonaut

From the San Francisco Argondut.
The Prince of Wales, for his own alnuse-
ment, lets people in whom the better MEM
bers will not recognize. But they only stay
in so long as the Prince smiles. Their adj
mission is really but temporary one and
dependent solely upon the caprice of the
Prince, whose smile admits them, but whose
frown will as quickly expel. For people
and especially foreigners-to imagine, there
fore, that because the Prince of Wales takes
notice of them. and for his own amusement
gets friends with whom he has influence to
invite them to their entertainments, they
have achieved the entree into English high
life-except in very narrow and epheme-
raj fashions one of the biggest mistakes
which people can make. know quite well
| shall be gainsaid in this. Americans who
have come over to London during the season
and gone to some balls and garden parties
under the Prince of Wales wing and pat
rOnage, and have been invited to Marlbor-
ough House are, / am quite aware, imbued
with the deusion that they have seen and
know all about English high life. They have
and they have not. They have caught a
glimmer of it under the peculiar circum-
stances of being noticed by the Prince of
Wales, who has given them five minutes
view, as it were, of the sphere of high life
III WHICH, uS ~ UlC LII
the short space in which they have the OPP
portunity to take and make observations,
they naturally get but a cramped idea of
what actual English high life is as it is in
and among the Prince of Wales set. Be
yond that, they positively can know moth
ing
There is an immense part of the society
which makes high life which has virtually
nothing to do with the Prince of Wales.
OF course, they couldn't and wouldn't re-
fuse to recognize his royal highness and
yield him his true position whenever he
might choose to appear among them. But
it would be more as the heir apparent to the
throne, and technical first gentleman of
the kingdom" than as proper exponent
and sample of their customs and manners,
that they would yield him homage and
place. 1t is extremely doubtful too, if His
royal highness could bring the outsiders"
in among them that he does among his own
particular y-go-lucky clique. 1t is ex-
tremely doubtful if he would try. He knows
better. He is a man of wondrous tact and
discrimination, and he would know as we'll
as any one-better. indeed-that the real
aristocracy, the real high life of England in
its entirety and purity, wouldn't put up with
it. He can go among them himself and take
whoever could of right go of themselves
with him. But further than that. | take it,
he wouldn't go. In fact, he exhibits a dual
character. In his set he is one thing-in
high life quite another A jolly good fell
low, fond of a good joke, a good story ac-
tresses, professional beauties and pretty
women generally, in his set, he becomes in
high life, whenever he sees fit to enter it, a
serious, dignified man, polished gentleman,
ungiven to frivolity and a great stickler for
the observance of everything that of right
is due to him as a Prince. In short, in his
set he is ''Wales" and ''Tummy;" in high
life the Kingdoms future King In ordec to
understand him one must judge him in both
capacities
In view of this. it becomes serious ques-
ton whether his notice of Americans and
introduction of them into his set las long as
they please HIM, is after all such very
high honor as some people are accustomed
to regard it, or one in the least desirable for
any foreigner to be made the recipient of.
For my own part | doubt it, People get
their names into the newspapers, like Miss
Chamberlain and Miss Wins. ow, and the
outside world, both at home and abroad,
fancy they have taken English society by
storm. | don't think | am wrong in ven
turing to say that there are hundreds of
English young ladies in high life who could,
without quarter the effort, have gained
double the public notoriety for beauty and
anu NlNdClUJ anu Uildu
either Miss Chamberlain or Miss Winslow
did were their mothers to let them; or were
it all in keeping or accord with the tradi-
tionS of their class to exhibit such "bad
form" as to have their names to become the
public property which the parents of those
young ladies seemed to see no objection in
allowing their daughters to yield. / don't
in the least mean to insinuate that the graceS
and charms of the American girls who come
to England and capture the Prince of Wales
are not all that they are claimed to be, and
peculiarly capable of captivating the head
and heart of man wherever they may go.
| only say that in my humble opinion the
women of no nation hold an exclusive sway
in this respect; and, without in the very
smallest way wishing or intending to de
tract from all that is lovely in the American
girl, as she has of late years appeared in
London society, to assert that had English
girls of the highest sphere and rank been
permitted the same unlimited field of ope-
ration, the same unchecked freedom of self
assertion, there wouldn't have been the
victorious "walkover" for the transatlantic
damsels which their friends and admirers
are so fond of Boosting of on every occa-
sion. They had, in short, a race without
competitor, battle without an adversary.
In the first place, their adversaries, had
there been any, would not hive been allowed
the same weapons; and in the econd, their
competitors, had there been any, wouldn't
have been permitted to struggle for such a
reward.
hope and trust shall not be misunder-
stood as in the slightest degree implying that
Americans are not received into the highest
society in England, for they are. But it is
not only because they are Americans they
are so received. They must be nice Ameri-
cans in the fullest sense of the word, and
there are thousands of such. 1t will not be,
and it is not, because they are beauties, of
loud, self-asserting voices and mannerisms,
of cool self possession. knowing looks, openly
coquetting ways and possessed of two dozen
costumes made by Worth. Such get into
the Princes set, are famed here and there
and in every penny-a-line society newspaper
in the kingdom, and cabled back to the
United States press by ignorant correspond
ents and sensational society gossip-gatherers
as 1.-THE success of the London season. while
the more modest, retiring, well-bred girls
of some position in their own homes an6
possessed of graces and accomplishments to
fit them to shine in any society make friends
among the real high life of England, and
no one outside of their immediate circle
knows anything about it. You don't see
their names in the papers; you don't hear
them talked about in every theatre and club
and hotel in London, because the people who
talk about girls and ladies in theatres and
hotels in London know nothing about them.
There are no people who SO Immediately win
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